John Adams emerged in the last decades of the twentieth century as one of the most influential and widely performed American composers since Copland. 'The Chairman Dances' is a 'foxtrot for orchestra' that emerged as an offshootofthe composer's 1986 political opera 'Nixon in China'. It has become one of the composer's most popular works.

In this piece, from the third act of the Opera, protocol and ceremony are forgotten as the audience is ledintothe apparent privacy of the characters' be...

• The Chairman Dances